Food for thought from Wallaby legend

By
Samantha Newsam

WORLD Cup-winning Wallaby captain Nick Farr-Jones AM shared some anecdotes and his thoughts on the state of the game when he was the special guest speaker at Tamworth Rugby’s Long Lunch on Saturday.

WORLD Cup-winning Wallaby captain Nick Farr-Jones AM shared some anecdotes and his thoughts on the state of the game when he was the special guest speaker at Tamworth Rugby’s Long Lunch on Saturday.

More than 100 attended the lunch and had the opportunity to hear the former half-back’s views on a range of topics from the best forward he played with, the best try he’s seen or been involved in to the financial position of the game.

He was raw and honest as far as the latter, telling the audience the game is broke, although that probably didn’t come as a surprise to many.

The ARU’S financial difficulties have been well documented.

Farr-Jones has himself said previously that the game is in for tough times financially and predicts the next couple of years will be fairly lean revenue-wise.

The other consideration is they need to give parents and players time off.

The concept itself though is good.

On the field, Farr-Jones said fellow World Cup- winning captain John Eales was probably the best forward he played with.

He played with some great ones and rattled off names like Tim Gavin, Simon Poidevin and former Argentinean ‘Topo’ Rodri­guez.

As for favourite try.

“It’s hard to go past when Campo (David Campese) put the ball over his head for Tim (Horan),” he said referring to Horan’s try in the 1991 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand when Campese gathered a chip-kick from five-eighth Michael Lynagh and, knowing he couldn’t score with two defenders about to tackle him, made a blind throw over his shoulder to Horan.